Reports from grassroots activism in the San Francisco Bay Area
danielfortyone{at}gmail.com

Daniel's Recommendations

for KPFA's Local Station Board

KPFA's election of this summer 2009

Nine seats are pursued by nearly 30 candidates. I'm recommending persons from two slates: "People's Radio" (PR) and "Independents for Community Radio" (ICR). Even so, that's about 15 candidates, so I suggest some sort of ranking order.

At the top of the list, I'm suggesting five persons who either are or have been board members. These five have done a good job and have good attendance records. These are, in reverse alphabetical order:

Sasha Futran-- ICR slateInitially I did not include Sasha Futran because of her absences. Nevertheless, at the LSB of Aug 8th, I was very impressed with the part she took in helping to expose the fraudulent story of the supposed "raid" on KPFA'a funds.Sasha has expressed a commitment that if elected, she will attend.-- see Sasha Futran's commentary in the Berkeley Daily Planet.

ALSO PLEASE CONSIDERThese are impressive people who haven't yet been board members, listed in reverse alphabetical order:

There is a slate I do NOT recommend: the "Concerned Listeners" (CL). Why not? Because in addition to being undemocratic, they have shown themselves to be less than fiscally responsible. On the CL's watch, Pacifica very nearly slid into bankruptcy.

From here in northern California, I've been following reports from WBAI, the Pacifica sister station in New York. I'm recommending Mitchel Cohen, Frank LeFever, and others of the INDEPENDENTS slate. I'm impressed with their courage and tenacity over the years as they struggled to save WBAI, and with the hopeful results that have come of their efforts as of this year.

I do NOT recommend the "Justice & Unity Coalition" (JUC) slate at WBAI. They were joined together with the Concerned Listeners from KPBA (CL'ers) in an unholy alliance of mutual co-dependents, protecting each other from accountability. Over a period of several years until this spring, the JUC ran WBAI into the ground.